Thoughts of the Sacred

Sacredness is to be held in a reverence, an awe, a holiness of the Whole. I find sacredness in our family, our communion of relationship and caring, our vulnerability to each other and our responsibility for each other. I find sacredness in the natural world. I hold an understanding of wonder, a quiet respect, and an exuberant excitement for its beauty and challenge.

Our family knows “homeplace.” It “speaks” of us. It holds us closely in its fabric and welcomes others into its warmth and quiet. My spouse is a love of many years, spanning from late youth to deep middle age. We form an entity of family; husband and wife, father and mother, lovers and loving. Our children create our circle of presence. They form our points of definition and prosperity. Each presents a unique treasure of challenge and becoming. They bring in new family members in their turn to love and recreate. A grandchild now illustrates the ever emerging circle, the widening wave of a stone’s ripple in life’s surface waters. We gather to work, to play, to celebrate, to grieve, to flourish. We are many, we are one. We are marked of each other, yet each professes an individual spirit of character and experience.

The kitchen is our place to gather in the breaking of bread, a sharing of a meal, the enjoyment of a libation. Here we know the satisfaction of a story told through the smile of an eye, a laughter that dances, a gesture that touches. Here we recognize the grace of all that is given and received.

Our hills and fields, our woods and streams, our pond and gardens offer places of retreat and reflection, work and opportunity for investment of sweat and toil. Here we share experiences of mornings and afternoons, evenings and nights, openings and closings. We recognize the becoming of seasons in the vibrant greens, the golden hues, the flaming reds, the silencing white across the valley’s landscape. The power of passing storms excites us together. The falling waters of the creek, gleaming stars, and bathing moonlight hold us in this formative womb. We “are” here. Quietness forms and shapes, both wooing and prompting. The liquid light of dawn, the softening of evening, the deepness of night, all offer a sacramental presence of intuitive belief in the glory of creation and the Creator.

Our mutual interactions as humans, our struggles, our discoveries, our understandings and acceptances of ourselves and each other balance the equation of daily life. Thus I understand the sacred, the holy of Wholeness. The “be here now of I am who am.”

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This week’s essay

Growing up in the former Yugoslavia, lawyer Djenita Pasic enjoyed the peace of her religiously diverse country. But after the fall of communism and the outbreak of the Bosnian War, Pasic was forced to reevaluate her ideas about religion and tolerance. Click here to read her essay.